What are the effects of spinach and berries on oxidative stress, inflammation, and muscle soreness in athletes?
Higher fruit and vegetable consumption was “positively associated with muscle power” in adolescents, but they aren’t the ones who really need it. What about the consumption of fruits and vegetables and the risk of frailty in older adults? Researchers found that higher fruit and vegetable consumption was “associated with a lower short-term risk of frailty in a dose-response manner,” meaning more fruits or vegetables and less frailty. Those were observational studies, though, which, alone, can’t prove cause and effect. What happens when you put foods to the test?
As I discuss in my video Flashback Friday: Foods to Improve Athletic Performance and Recovery, there was “no positive influence of ingesting chia seed oil on human running performance,” but an effect was found for “spinach supplementation on exercise-induced oxidative stress.” Spinach supplementation? That just meant researchers gave some guys fresh, raw spinach leaves—one gram per kilo of body weight, which turned out to be about a quarter of a bunch a day—for two weeks and then had them run a half marathon. They found that “chronic daily oral supplementation of spinach”—like eating a salad—“has alleviating effects on known markers of oxidative stress and muscle damage…”
As you can see at 1:16 in my video, when you run a half marathon without supplementing with spinach, you get a big spike in oxidative stress and blood malondialdehyde levels that stay up for hours or even days later. In the spinach group, there isn’t much change before and after two weeks of spinach, but you can really see the difference after you put the body under pressure. After the rigors of a half marathon, your body, supplemented with spinach, is better able to deal with the stress.
